— Hikari's mental journal —
[Cultist ritual] Cleared out those grey-bark creatures that shot pink flames.
[Tower entrance] Ate that knight's heart. Grew bigger. Some nice food all around.
[First floor] No treasure.
[Second floor] Chill mana training. The last room got intense.
Shatter.
The wyvern's mouth burns.
The door didn't budge.
Hikari notices the mana in the wyvern's head dissipating.
Crack! Another charged shard struck it.
A flame burns in the wyvern's mouth.
The statue was lid.
The room opened.
Two squiggles between the stickman holding the diamond and the wyvern head.
Hikari holds a shard resting in her hand.
Throwing a charged shard was actually a viable attack that she could use in a real battle.
It did little to the wyvern statue, made of stone meant to withstand its fire.
But Hikari could imagine it hitting a flesh golem and doing some serious damage.
She doesn't have a proper belt to hold them.
She focuses on the single shard.
Slowly, she lowers her hand, trying to levitate the shard with telekinesis.
Good.
Her telekinesis works.
But is it stable?
The shard wobbles.
She cuts her power and lets it drop back onto her palm.
She had realized that adding more power and squeezing it more would shatter it.
Time to practice.
She sits down, pulls out a dagger, and holds it hovering above her palm.
Clank!
The dagger's tip hits the wall, leaving a tiny mark.
She pulls the dagger back by sliding it across the ground.
It was the best she could manage for now.
Clank!
Clank!
Hikari practices the stabbing attack.
The telekinetic force behind the dagger was enough to smash a wooden palisade.
Clank!
Hikari picks up the dagger.
The marks on the wall landed close together.
She was quite satisfied with the accuracy.
Now for the shard.
The tiny shard floated above her palm.
It glowed brightly as she charged it.
Flames swirled around it.
She aims.
The shard hits the wall right between the dagger marks and bursts into flames.
"Nice."
She has a viable ranged attack now.
The only thing missing is a good pouch to hold the shards so she can access them easily.
She had been stuffing them into her empty dagger slots.
But they will likely drop out if she moves around too violently.
Onwards, to the next trial.
Three squiggles.
Three shards floated above her palm.
Fully charged, the trio barrel towards the wyvern head.
The wyvern's mouth lit up.
The door rumbled.
An easy clear now that she figured out the trick.
The next room contained two wyvern heads.
Two squiggles stacked vertically on top of each other.
Two vertically stacked wyvern heads to match.
Crack.
The first statue lit up.
Hikari charged up the second shard.
Crack.
The second statue began charging up.
But before its flame could ignite, the first fire died.
"Together?"
That was the logical deduction.
She charged two shards.
Both miss.
She hasn't properly practiced in a while.
Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss.
She tries a few more times before deciding not to waste more shards.
Practice with dagger time.
Clank! Clank!
Both daggers hit the wall.
Again.
Clank! Clank!
Again.
With the shards as a ranged attack, it's probably not too much of a problem to blunt the tips of her daggers for practice.
She puts up a sound barrier.
Being so engrossed in her practice, she almost forgot her most basic survival skills.
Clank! Clank!
Again and again, the daggers hit the wall.
The dagger marks scattered around the points where Hikari imagined the wyvern heads would be.
Hungry.
Hikari stretches and yawns.
Her supplies are still on the floor at the starting point.
She wearily dragged her body back there.
It was dark outside.
The crack in the wall wasn't big enough for her to see the moon.
It's probably past her bedtime.
Her supplies were exactly as she left them.
The tower was truly deserted.
She wolfed down a ration pack along with some petals and cannonball fruit.
Nine packs left.
She still felt hungry, but she wanted to sleep more.
She curled up along the wall.
Her feet felt cold without socks.
She assembled them just for the night.
They'd tear quickly if she walked in them, since they no longer fit her properly.
She'll take them off in the morning.
…
It was morning again.
At least so she thinks.
All she could see was the sunlight through the crack in the wall.
Hungry.
She ate another ration pack. Eight left.
The petals and cannonball fruits still left on the walls could last her for more than a week.
She drinks. The water in the large pot was not a quarter empty.
She had found some smaller pots in the inner chamber and left them at the stream to collect water.
For the next trials, she could bring the smaller pot and move the big one to the end once she's done with the floor.
Time to move.
She walks through the empty trial rooms.
The room with two wyvern statues that must be struck at the same time.
She grabs a pair of shards and charges them up.
Her first two of the day.
The shards strike the statues.
The wyvern's mouths lid up.
The door rumbles and opens.
"Nice."
She advances into the next room.
Three wyvern statues.
Three squiggles.
Hikari takes her stance in the middle of the tile.
Three shards ignite, floating above her palm.
Release.
Two of them hit their mark.
The one to the left veered just a little too much.
The wyvern heads dim.
She charges up another set.
All three find the mark.
Two tries.
She's getting good at this.
All three statues lit up.
The door rumbled briefly, but it didn't open.
Hikari walked up to it.
She sharpened her senses and examined the mana ley lines.
"Stuck."
Something seemed to be breaking the flow behind.
Something immediately came to mind.
She placed her palms against the wall and channeled the tower's mana.
Amping it up at the spot where the mana seemed to be missing.
She heard vines burning.
The door rumbled as the mana flow was restored.
But the next room was a mess.
It was filled with the burnt remains of the vines that had clogged the room.
Wyvern statues were powering down, releasing their flames.
The door at the end of the room was half broken.
So were some of the wyvern statues.
Hikari charged up some shards and hurled them at the remaining vines to clear the room.
It seemed like she had a free pass.
It was slightly disappointing, as she would have benefited from the practice.
A pink flower grew on the wall.
It looked familiar.
Her gut instinct told her it wasn't edible.
She sensed a sting as she raised her finger towards the flower.
Burn it. She tells herself.
She cracks a shard onto the flower.
The fragile flower shriveled up as it burned.
Now to tackle the half-open gate.
Crack. She burns away the vines encumbering the gating mechanism.
A low rumbling.
The gate lowered.
She steps on it to make sure it's going down.
She passes to the next room.
Back to a single wyvern statue.
Is it smashing a shard into the statue again?
She glances at the stickman drawing above the door.
The stickman was sitting in front of the wyvern statue.
One squiggle behind the statue.
She follows its instruction and sits on the tile in front of the wyvern statue.
The mana was as strong as the endurance trials on the first floor.
Hikari channels the mana.
Basic mana control again.
The mana in the statue builds up.
Click! The statue's mouth lights up once Hikari pushes it over the threshold.
That felt like another warm-up.
A start of another session.
Hikari cleared the hard rounds of the shard trials after letting the practice she put in sink in while she slept.
The next room.
Two squiggles. One wyvern head.
The second squiggle added noticeably more resistance.
After many minutes, Hikari finally pushed the mana over the threshold.
She was sweating. She drank half a small pot of water.
Munch. Munch. Seven ration packs.
She needed more petals and cannonball fruit soon.
A short nap.
The next room had three squiggles.
Four tiles worth of mana.
Hikari pushes.
The door rumbles.
Four squiggles.
The wyvern statue was bigger in this room.
Hikari braces herself.
This would be the toughest trial so far.
Time passed.
Hikari lay flat on the ground, panting.
The mana in the wyvern statue dissipates.
Munch. Munch. Six packs left.
She'll stick around the tower for another day.
Maybe this is where she'll stop.
How long did it take to master the RazenHeir flame?
It's time for some sleep.